Today we will take a look on the PresentationFontCache process and discuss if it’s needed for your system to function properly, why it can slow down your computer loading your CPU up to 90% and how to disable it.

What is PresentationFontCache Process?

PresentationFontCache.exe is a standard Windows process which is needed when running WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation) applications (they are designed to assist developers to create user interfaces). It’s important to mention that this process can load CPU high even when none of the WPF applications is running (that depends if all necessary WPF components is installed on machine: if PresentationFontCache didn’t find them using default path — the search process starts again and again, hogging up to 70-90% of machine’s CPU cycles).

When issues with PresentationFontCache happening, users often facing situation when system slows down from the first time the application is run. If you’ll take a look at service’s status, you’ll see Starting. In such situation you can try to delete the process by using command:

net start FontCache3.0.0.0

But in most of the cases that won’t help and PresentationFontCache.exe immediately loads up again and ramps CPU use.

Executable file of the process is located in folder C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v3.0\WPF; PresentationFontCache.exe is a part of Microsoft .Net Framework and has a Microsoft signature.

How to Disable PresentationFontCache.exe Process?

In case your computer became slow due to CPU load because of PresentationFontCache.exe process or you just don’t use WPF-applications and want to get rid of this process, you can disable the service Windows Presentation Foundation Font Cache to increase the performance:

Press Win+R, type in services.msc and press OK;

In services list find Windows Presentation Foundation Font Cache;

Click on the service and press button Stop Services;

Now open folder C:\Windows\ServiceProfiles\LocalService\AppData\Local\ (you may need to use view hidden files to see it) and delete all Font*.dat files (like FontCache4.0.0.0.dat or FontCache3.0.0.0.dat);